Escape
by ashtondene
Summary: One Shot. Peyton awake in the middle of the night...Read to find out what she is escaping from. Pathan? M rating for drug use.


A/N: So this is dark. If you don't like drug use, you shouldn't read this.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not One Tree Hill. Not Nirvana.

Make sure you REVIEW!! Tell me what you think 

Wide Awake.

**3:03 A.M.**

I can't sleep. I am not surprised, I never sleep anymore.

People would tell you it is the drugs. That the coke is what keeps me up at night. But it isn't.

What keeps me awake at night are the images that play over and over in my head.

My mom dying. Nathan Leaving. Cheating with Luke. Jake & Jenny Leaving. Jake & Jenny leaving again. Brooke slapping me. Ellie. Nathan & Brooke sleeping together. Luke Proposing. Waking up to an empty hotel room.

These images are what keep me up at night. The images that make sleep escape me. Not the drugs.

I am sure you now think I am an addict and don't know what I am talking about. That the drugs are talking. That these images from years ago couldn't possibly be the reason I don't sleep.

But they really are.

With every image that plays through my mind and I think about how different things could have been with one single action or one single choice.

Like, if my mom had never died would Brooke and I still have become friends?

If Nathan and I hadn't broken up that night would we have lasted? Or broken up the next night?

What if I had said yes to Lucas the first time he said he wanted everything with me?

Every night I play these scenarios out in my head and I wonder how my life ended up in a shack on the beach in LA….

…addicted to coke.

It is the nights like these that I miss being 16. Best friends with Brooke. Nathan's girlfriend. Cruising in my comet. The nights I think of these things are the nights I sleep. These are the nights I stay away from the drugs.

You might think it is odd that I think of these memories out of all my memories. Or you might not understand why these are the memories that make me happy. But they are.

These memories were before the hurt and confusion and everyone's life being in shambles. When I think of these memories, nothing that happened after I was 16 happened. My mind blocks out everything with Jake. With Luke. Fights with Brooke. Ellie.

It is just Nate and I in our complicated, confusing and sometimes terrible relationship. It is just Brooke and I ruling the school. No Haley. No Rachel. No love triangles.

On the best nights, I only think of Nathan.

I don't remember the fights or the drama.

I remember him painting my toe nails. I remember nights at the beach house. Our sexy banter on the sidelines at basketball games.

The great sex.

His strong arms. How he cared for me the best way he knew how.

These are the memories that let me escape life and live in my dreams. The memories that keep me clean.

**3:31 AM**

Tonight is a different night from all the others though.

I am awake.

_I am sober._

I am sitting at the computer listening to Nirvana's _Heart Shaped Box_ waiting patiently.

Waiting for him like I have so many nights in the past months.

It was the worst night in a long time, the first night was, I had done more lines than necessary and was on a 3 day bender. And just like many, many nights before I was sitting at the computer listening to Nirvana. The memories had been too much that particular night.

Then suddenly, there it was…a message from him.

_From Nathan._

We hadn't spoken in years, even though I thought of him often. I thought it was the drugs, I didn't believe he had found me. Or that he would want to talk to me.

Since that night months ago, I haven't slept. Every night I sit up waiting for him to send me a message. They come almost every night. The nights they come are the best nights. I love sitting with him, knowing he is there. We don't talk much, we just find comfort in the other sitting there. Watching one another on the web cams.

These nights make me deliriously happy. Happier than any drug could.

But.

The nights he doesn't message me. I don't sleep those nights either. Those are the nights that I let the drugs take me.

There are no memories that help me sleep anymore. There are just types of awake all night now.

The deliriously happy, I don't need sleep because I am in love awake. & the I just did 3 lines of coke because I am miserable and alone awake.

**3:55 AM**

I am pretty sure tonight is going to be one of those "I just did 3 lines off coke because I am miserable and alone awake".

Normally he is on before here.

Tonight, for the first night ever, the coke is going to put me to slee, I need to escape these memories that consume me in the darkness…

As I am fading away, finally finding a peace that had long escaped me I feel arms around me and his voice calling out my name, but I am too far gone, to peaceful to fall for this trick of him actually being here.

Slowly, it has faded to black.

I am gone.

Nathan is really here.

Too late to save me from my final escape.

A/N: The story is Peyton, rambling, late at night/early in the morning. It isn't proofread for a reason; it is supposed to be disjointed and troubling. I hope that the disjointed, rambling came across in the story.

Please review and tell me what you think!


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